29 posts categorized "Chabad & EJs"

September 01, 2015

Parents of students in a Chabad kindergarten in Kfar Yona have refused to send their children to school because the school accepted several Ethiopian Jewish children as students. In total, 34 children are staying home to protest the inclusion of the Ethiopian Jews.

May 12, 2013

Member of Knesset Dov Lipman – called a "rasha" (evil one) and an "apostate" by Rabbi Aharon Feldman – responds to the stinging attacks on him from haredi rabbis, including Feldman, over the government's plan to draft haredim and to compel haredi schools funded by the government to actually teach secular subjects as required by law. Lipman is also asked about Women of the Wall.

February 18, 2008

An mp3 of my interview on the Talkline Network's Mamash Radio show is posted after the jump in the extended post. The interview aired Saturday night-Sunday morning after Zev Brenner's show and Shmuel Butman's Moshiach on the Air.

June 06, 2007

Here is a piece by Matthew Wagner from today's Jerusalem Post. Wagner reports Rabbi Dov Lior, the rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba and a leader of the National Religious right wing has ruled that Israel should not aid Darfur refugees who have found their way to Israel. (Rabbi Lior earlier ruled that these poor people should be stopped at the borders and pushed back into the Sinai wilderness.)

His ruling was echoed by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, head of the Ateret Yerushalayim yeshiva and another leader of National Religious Jews. Efraim Zuroff, also an Orthodox Jew, of the Simon Wiesenethal Center's Israel office also agrees.

First, Rabbi Lior:

Israel has no moral responsibility to aid Darfur refugees, and their
plight must not be compared to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Chief
Rabbi of Hebron-Kiryat Arba Dov Lior said on Wednesday.

He was responding to a query on the "Yeshiva" Internet forum.

Lior's questioner said Israel was obligated to help Sudanese refugees
who reached its borders just as the nations of the world were morally
responsible to help Jews suffering under Nazi Germany.

But Lior disagreed: "The Holocaust is not a good example [of a general
moral obligation that can be compared to Israel's obligation to Darfur
refugees]," he said. "During the Holocaust, Jews were hunted. The
Germans wanted to destroy all the Jews wherever they were. The Swiss
who saved the Jews [sic] knew that someone was hunting them down and
wanted to murder them.

"We have enough problems of our own with immigration absorption. We
need to take care of our own 'Sderot refugees' and we do not have
budget reserves. We have enough poor people in Israel. There are plenty
of nations that can help those refugees besides us.

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, head of the Ateret Yerushalayim yeshiva, said Jewish law obliged Jews to treat all human beings with loving kindness.

"We have to do it not because of the Holocaust but because God commanded to treat all of His creations, especially those created in His image, with loving kindness.

"We don't do it for the publicity or to look good in the eyes of the goyim. Jews have done acts of loving kindness in the past even when they were paid back with hatred," Aviner said.

However, he also said our own poor and homeless, including Israelis "expelled" from the Gaza Strip, came first. "We are a country of refugees," said Aviner. "We simply do not have the resources."

Now Efraim Zuroff:

Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Jerusalem office, agreed with Lior that comparing the plight of Jews during the Holocaust to that of Sudanese refugees was inaccurate.

"Sudanese who managed to reach Israel had already escaped ethnic cleansing by entering Egypt from Sudan," he said. "The move to Israel was an attempt to find a better haven.

"Obviously, as Jews who were victims of genocide, we have a special duty to help stop the ethnic cleansing inside Sudan. But at the same time, Israel has limited resources. We cannot possibly help all Sudanese refugees," he said.

The case being discussed here are refugees who walked across the the Sinai and illegally crossed into Israel seeking shelter. They are victims of genocide who fled to Egypt, were persecuted there, some were sent back to Darfur by Egyptian authorities, and others fled to Israel.

To say, as Rabbi Lior does, that the "poor of one's own country take precedence over other people's poor" is disingenuous. That halakha is talking about sending money or aid to another city or country. Then, all things being equal, the poor of your own town or family come first. But, if the poor in another country are starving to death, and yours merely skip one or two meals per week, or eat less choice foods for the Sabbath, the halakha mandates aiding the poor starving to death in that other country.

So what are Rabbis Lior and Aviner really saying? They are saying this – Darfur refugees are not Jews. The halakha quoted is talking about helping Jews. The implication here is clear. Darfur refugees do not deserve our help because they are not Jewish.

But the truth is, once these poor people get to us, they are our poor, and they must be aided just like any other poor person in Israel. That is the halakha. (Some of you may recall biblical verses about how to treat strangers, verses that also say, "…because you were once strangers in Egypt.")

So what we have here is two prominent right wing National Religious rabbis with huge followings. Both misrepresent the halakha, it seems for political reasons.

These rabbis are concerned about aiding settlers who refused to leave Gaza, lost much of their benefits as a result, and now suffer – all because they listened to these very same National Religious rabbis (and others, as well) who ordered them to remain in Gaza.

As for the Sederot refugees, aiding them is not a matter of a shortage in funds – it is a matter of s shortage in political will.

As for Zuroff, he is right and he is wrong. Yes, the parallel is not exact. But he raises a straw man rather than deal with the actual situation. No one is talking about taking in all or most of Darfur refugees. We are dealing with a few hundred people, not millions, and the state – and, just as importantly, the Israeli private sector – has more than enough money to help these people.

The saddest thing of all here is noting Rabbi Lior's background:

…During the Holocaust, Lior himself was a refugee. He and his family
were expelled from Poland and wandered through the Soviet Union. Both
his parents died of starvation.

Lior is one of the most respected and influential religious Zionist
rabbis in more right-wing circles. Many of his students hold key
positions in national religious high schools and he is the spiritual
authority for the Ariel Youth Movement.…

What did God spare Rabbi Lior for? To repeat the mistakes and evil of his parent's oppressors?

I will say one very controversial thing about this sad affair. Scholars study the formation of the Hitler Youth. They seek to answer, in part, a fundamental question: How could an entire generation of children be, for want of a better term, brainwashed? How could Hitler, yemach shemo, have 'cloned' so many little Hitlers?

Perhaps we should study the Ariel Youth Movement and its members. By this I do not mean to equate Rabbi Lior with Hitler or his movement with Hitler youth. But I do see parallels between Rabbi Lior's history of racism, and his teaching of this racism to youth, and what happened in Germany.

This is a very sad day for Judaism, and an even sadder day, I'm afraid, for God.

And, yes, I do see parallels with the late Lubavitcher Rebbe's position on (not) aiding Ethiopian Jews, where he also cites din kadima (the poor of your own town come first) as a reason to not help save starving, tortured Ethiopian Jews.

March 14, 2007

"I have no idea where my mother is buried. Now I will be
able to unite with her memory and the memory of my brother," Yaakov
Gonchel, 29, who immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia in 1982, said
Wednesday.

More than two decades after a large wave of immigration from Ethiopia
arrived in Israel, a memorial commemorating the 4,000 members of the
community who perished on the long journey to the holy land was finally
inaugurated in Jerusalem.

The memorial was erected with the help of the Immigration and Absorption Ministry.

"This took many years, during which many people have not had a proper opportunity to mourn," Gonchel explained.

The mass departure of Ethiopian Jews from their country as part of the
"Moshe Operation" began in 1983, when thousands started moving
clandestinely towards the Sudanese border. During their journey and
stay in temporary camps in Sudan they endured murders, rapes, diseases,
robberies and hunger.

Some 8,000 were flown from Sudan to Israel in the framework of the "Moshe Operation".

Uri Rada, chairman of the Ethiopian Jews Remembrance Fund, who lost his
mother on the journey to Israel, told Ynet: "This was a kind of
holocaust for the Ethiopian community. Most of us don't talk about it
to this day, because this is a very emotionally charged subject for the
community."…

The number of EJs that tried to reach Sudan in 1983-84 is probably
closer to 14,000. Hundreds died on the way, hundreds more in the
refugee camps, and several thousand died trying to walk back to Sudan
after Operation Moses was halted by the Sudanese government after leaks
in the Israeli and American media. Those leaks are directly traceable
to the highest levels of the Israeli government. Operation Moses
stopped on Friday January 5, 1985 after then-PM Shimon Peres held a
press conference confirming the airlift while nonsensically asking people not to talk
about it. Sudan killed the airlift moments after Peres stopped speaking.

It is worth noting that the NY Times and Boston Globe both had the
story of the airlift more than a month earlier. They held their stories
on the direct request of the US State Department, convinced that
publishing meant killing Jews. The Washington Jewish Week was then
tipped by a person close to the Israeli leadership. It refused the Stae
Department's plea and published the story. The NY Times and Boston
Globe were furious, and published their stories. The airlift did not
end because President Ronald Regan upped the amoiunt of bribe money the
US was paying the Sudanese leadership. As long as Israel did not
officially acknowledge the airlift, the Sudanese had enough cover to
let the airlift continue. That is why Peres called his press
conference, whose only possible purpose was to derail the airlift.
Thousands more EJs died horrific deaths as a result of Peres' actions.

A lesson to be learned here is that the airlift succeeded because the
US paid for them and backed them with the entire weight of the US
Government, and that publicizing the airlift endangered lives.

Now imagine the airlift had worked this way: EJs airlifted from Sudan
and taken to hotels in Cyprus, where they would have lived for a few
days while undergoing a conversion process. From there, the EJs would
have been flown to Israel. What kind of publicity would have been
generated by dropping off starving, disease-ridden Africans in the
middle of Cyprus (or Rome, another suggested location)? The airlift
would have been leaked earlier and more EJs would have died as a
result, probably along with a few Israeli agents.

Yet this insane plan (one, it must be stressed, that the government of
Cyprus – and the Italian government – would not agree to) is the plan
pushed by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in his responsa to me. When I received
Rav Moshe's answer, I told him this would never work, that the plan was
impossible. His response was that we should try and that it should be our
first resort.

There is a lot one can say – little of it good – about the judgement of
someone who suggests this type of Rube Goldberg behavior. (As, indeed,
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef points out about Rav Moshe, in language no more
polite than mine.) Yet Rav Moshe wanted them all rescued. He wanted them
all educated in Orthodox Judaism lest they be lost to the Jewish
people, and he forbade discrimination against them, especially
discrimination based on skin color.

But the bottom line is clear. Many Ethiopian Jews died unnecessarily
because of the actions of other Jews, and even more would have died if
haredi rabbis had been followed. And, of course, almost no one cares about any of this.

Halakhic background on Ethiopian Jews can be found here. The Rebbe's letter to me on rescuing Ethiopian Jews is here, along with other documents of interest. Agudath Israel's attitude toward rescue can be seen here. And an interesting tidbit on haredim and Holocaust rescue is here.

Of course, this was complete bullshit. Chabad had long been involved in using these same methods to save Iranian Jews. (So, to be clear, had Satmar.) But Chabad's operation had come to a halt early in 1982. And it was no state secret. Iranian Jews saved this way were very evident in Crown Heights and LA, and they didn't hide how they were saved. Many had moved from the US to Israel, as well.

Many of you questioned me on this point, claiming Chabad had not used student visas to save Iraninan Jews. Well, just to keep the record clear, here is why you were so very wrong:

One late afternoon in October 1978, Hertzel Illulian, a Chabad student from Brooklyn, was silently praying mincha outside the Intercontinental Hotel in Tehran. He took three steps back after reciting the Amidah, the service's central prayer, and found himself surrounded by a wall of men, secret police dressed in street clothes.

They threatened to cart him off to jail, eventually dismissing him and taking a local Iranian Jew instead.

This was a period of massive unrest in Iran, as pro-Ayatollah Khomeini supporters engaged in often violent street demonstrations against the shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who had imposed martial law and whose tanks and troops patrolled the streets. But Illulian, then 19, didn't feel scared.

"I was courageous," he said. "I had the purpose to save Jewish children."

He was an official Chabad student shaliach, or emissary, working on behalf of [Chabad's] Brooklyn-based National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education, and armed with the coveted blessing of Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneersohn. This was the beginning of his now-legendary mission to help transport about 3,000 young Jewish Persians, most ranging in age from 12 to 19, using I-20 student visas, from an increasingly dangerous Iran to safety in the United States.…

Illulian, who was raised in Milan, Italy, by parents born in Tehran, has a bona fide track record in this area. It was his idea to bring almost 3,000 young people out of Iran, working tirelessly from 1978 to about 1982 to accomplish it.

Sholem Hecht, rabbi of the Sephardic Jewish Congregation and Center in Queens, N.Y., who accompanied Illulian on his first trip to Tehran and assisted in the rescue, said, "There's no question he played a very special role in the history of Iranian Jews in America."

October 20, 2006

Ethiopian Jewish leaders have told me for years that many missionaries were coming to Israel with the Falash Mura and were now actively trying to convert Ethiopian Jews in Israel. The story has finally made the papers in Israel:

Spiritual leaders of the nation's poor, culture-shocked and embattled Ethiopian community opened another front of divisiveness Wednesday, calling to excommunicate members of their community who engage in Christian missionary activity.

The Jewish Ethiopian community plans to compose a blacklist of known missionaries who will be ostracized.

"We know who they are," said Itzhak Zagai, Chief Rabbi of Rehovot's Ethiopian community. "The worst punishment imaginable for an Ethiopian is excommunication, because we are all so interdependent."

Ethiopians who appear on the list will be unable to marry inside the community.…

But what more should be done? Should we deny entry to all Falash Mura because of a few missionaries? Ethiopian Jewish leaders often say we should do just that. The Rabbinute says the opposite, based on a series of halakhic rulings. And the state? The state would just as soon left all Ethiopian Jews in Ethiopia. Without outside pressure and some strong intervention from President Regan, that is exactly what would have happened.

Here's where I come down on this: Bring in all the Falash Mura now. At the same time, begin intensive anti-missionary campaigns in the Ethiopian community. Helping Ethiopian Jews fit in, find work and become Israeli is extremely important. Missionaries feed on poverty and alienation, the two things Israel's failed absorption policy ensures. Chabad's shameful treatment of Ethiopian Jews, along with haredi racism, doesn't help things, either.

October 16, 2006

I recently exchanged emails with a friend in Jerusalem. He is adamant. Ethiopian Jews are not Jewish. To bolster his point, he cites DNA evidence, evidence that, at most, can indicate that Ethiopian Jews not descended from the southern tribes of Israel, primarily Judah and Levi. He also cites Hebrew University's Steven Kaplan, who believes Ethiopian Jews adopted Judaism in the early Middle Ages as part of a wave of Judaization sweeping Ethiopia. (Kaplan himself fully supports EJ aliya and absorption, and is very clear on those points.) There is also evidence of this noted by another academic who specializes in Ethiopian song.

The point of this post is not to refute this belief, but I will make one simple point regarding it: Nothing these academics believe and nothing in that DNA evidence precludes conversion to Judaism. In other words, at best this evidence proves not that Ethiopian Jews are goyyim, but that Ethiopian Jews may be converts. And, when you factor in what academics of equal stature say in opposition, or what many others say – based on solid evidence – about the lineage of Ashkenazi Jews, for example, or the 'unity' of the Tribes of Israel, one quickly realizes that all of this evidence is a two-edged sword; what cuts the black Jews you so dislike cuts you, deeply, as well.

The point of this post is to ask a hypothetical question: What if Ethiopian Jews are not Jewish? What if they never converted and are not descended from Jews? What if they are simply well-meaning non-Jews who adopted as many Jewish practices as they could and identified as Jews, doing so for hundreds of years, often under great persecution? How should we then properly relate to them?

Let me quote from my friend's emails because they are representative of many other emails and comments I've received over the last twenty-five years:

"[Ethiopian Jews are] just African black guys with feathers and bells singing their ol' folk tunes but they sure got rhythm … I see dozens of Ethiopians a day and 95% look like deep African tribal blacks and the other 5 % look more refined but none of them look Jewish to me… SHVARZAH NIC YIDDEN … they ain't Jews except to the non-religious politicians who want cannon fodder they are employed as security guards and janitors and vote for the liberal parties the lefties love it canned votes and someone to sweep the floors … you marry a sevarzah and i will marry a Jewish girl your kids will have rhythm and mine will get a Noble prize (at least statistically)…"

Is this any way to treat people who have suffered as Jews for hundreds of years?

One would think that even those holding the minimalist position, those who reject all evidence in support of Ethiopian Jews' Jewish descent, would have respect for people who suffered so much because everybody who persecuted them did so to persecute Jews.

Indeed, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein mentions this in his letter, and writes: "One should also know that even if in practical application of the law they are not Jews, nevertheless since they think they are Jews and sacrifice their lives for their Judaism, we are obligated to save them." And, as Rabbi Feinstein, Rabbi Ahron Soleveitchik and others have made clear many times, one may not discriminate against a person, Jewish or not, because of skin color.

But it should not take a pesak halakha to teach Jews that. I would think that if a people had suffered so much and risked so much for Judaism and Israel, we would, at the very least, be civil toward them. We certainly would want to help them out of danger and distress, and do whatever is necessary to help them succeed.

Yet, in the Ashkenazi Orthodox world (especially in the American part of it) the opposite is often the case. Here is a quote from an email sent to me by a leading member of the RCA: "[A leading Orthodox professor with close ties to Chabad] once said that the poskim who affirmed the certain Jewishness of the Ethiopian Jews were those who did not read a European language." This is a racist slap at the dozens of Sefardic poskim who hold, just like Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, that Ethiopian Jews are 100% Jewish. Needless to say, this Orthodox professor is not known as a friend to Ethiopian Jews in any way, not even following Rabbi Feinstein's minimalist position quoted above – a position, by the way, endorsed by Rabbi J.B. Soleveitchik and dozens of others, as well.

I think this all points to a larger malaise in Orthodoxy, a malaise that has turned morality into "what can we get away with" rather than "what is the ideal we should strive for."

The mesorah tells us that the Messiah won't check lineage. Traditionally, questions of lineage have been dealt by rabbis in the most lenient ways possible. Yet, put black skin on people and somehow leniency gets tossed to the wind, and strictness becomes the norm.

This is racism, pure and simple – bigotry based on skin color. Rabbis who allow this, either by commission or by silence, are many. You can find them at your local Chabad House, at your Modern Orthodox shul, on staff at Yeshiva University, and on the streets and study halls of Mea Shearim and Geulah. They work for Aish HaTorah and Ohr Somayach, study in the Mir, stroll 13th Avenue in Brooklyn. They are plentiful.

It seems to me they are killing Judaism.

[Perhaps the only reason I remained a BT after failing (or so I thought) to get a clear response from the Rebbe on Ethiopian Jews was the reaction of Rabbi Moshe Feller, the Rebbe's shaliach to the Upper Midwest, to a letter written by Ethiopian Jewish leaders and smuggled out of Ethiopia. The letter detailed the suffering of the people, including several rapes of young girls. As he read the letter, Rabbi Feller began to softly cry. His is the only positive reaction I can cite in all these years, outside of Rabbi Feinstein's message to me and the endorsement of other rabbis to the public parts of it. In dozens of interactions over many years, I would say well over 98% were wholly negative.]

October 04, 2006

Recently, I found Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's 1984 teshuva-letter on Ethiopian Jews stuck between two file folders. (You can click the thumbnail image for a larger, more readable image or download a PDF.) This letter was written in response to a question I asked through Rabbi Moshe Tendler, Rav Moshe's son-in-law. He referred the question to his son, Mordechai, who then served as Rav Moshe's secretary-assistant. What follows is a (rough) translation:

Here as per your request, I reaffirm what you wrote in my name several years ago regarding the "Falashas," that it is known what is written in the responsa of the Radba"z, section seven, §9, that it is understood he considers them to be Jews; however for practical application of the law it is difficult to rely on this, for it is not clear if the Radba"z knew well the reality regarding them, nor is it clear whether up until our time their status has [remained the same and] not changed. But in regard to practical application of the law they are not mamzerim or the like, for the Radba"z mentions there that many many doubts apply to them. Review my responsa where I detail at length the qualifications of the rabbinical prohibitions regarding the legal status of 'an illegitimate child of unknown fatherhood' and 'a child found in the street whose parents are (both) unknown'.

Regarding their Judaism, we must consider it a safek [doubt], and one must require of them true conversion before we permit them to marry within the Jewish community. Yet even before their conversion it is an active precept to save them from being drawn into a non-Jewish creed and from danger as the law is for any Jew, for "safek nefashot l'hakel" ["a doubt involving saving lives is judged leniently"] even where here the doubt is in their very status as Jews.

One should also know that even if in practical application of the law they are not Jews, nevertheless since they think they are Jews and sacrifice their lives for their Judaism, we are obligated to save them.***

As you mentioned, they should not be brought to the Land of Israel* unless they have underdone a conversion**, in order to not increase the concern for assimilation [i.e., intermarriage with Jews who do not have a doubt regarding their Jewish status and also a weakening of the faith of Ethiopian Jews themselves]. But if they have legally converted, and as I have heard they are doing, we shall consider them like all Jews, and one must assist them and support them for all needs of livelihood, both physically and spiritually. And I suffered great anguish because I have heard there are those in Israel who are not drawing them close in spiritual matters and are causing, G-d forbid, that they might be lost from Judaism. And it seems to me these people are behaving so only because the color of the Falashas' skin is black. It is obvious that one must draw them close, not only because they are no worse than the rest of the Jews – and because there is no distinction in practical application of the law because they are black – but also because one can say perhaps they are gerim [converts], and are therefore included in the mitzva "and you shall love the convert."

And I will conclude with the hope that the situation will improve, and in the merit in observing all the mitzvot, we should all soon merit to the ingathering of the exiles by our righteous messiah.

Your grandfather who loves you in heart and soul,

Moshe Feinstein

[All emphasis added.]

* Suggestions were made to bring Ethiopian Jews to Cyprus or Italy (or even the US or Canada) first to fulfill this request, but it proved impossible to do so. I told R. Mordechai Tendler this would not work. His answer based on conversations with his grandfather was to try anyway, which we did, and to note "safek nefashot l'hakel" in the teshuva. In other words, you have to save them no matter what. Rav Moshe wanted to give Baruch Tegegne and I brachot (blessings) to do so and asked us to come to the mountains, where he was vacationing, so he could bless us in person. Illness on our parts prevented this.

** Rav Moshe would later specify a giur l'humra, a form of pro forma conversion that allows conversion without first pushing away the potential converts and without first teaching them Jewish law. He would also later note that the Israeli Chief Rabbis' decision on these matters should be respected.

*** Rav Moshe had long before signed a public letter with non-Orthodox rabbis calling for the immediate aid for Ethiopian Jews and for rescue. It is linked here. Rabbi J. B. Soleveitchik signed the same letter. This is the campaign the late Lubavitcher Rebbe refused to join.

March 06, 2006

Israel's President, Moshe Katsav, had this to say about Ethiopian Jews:

Israel may have been wrong to bring
Ethiopian Jews to Israel, President Moshe Katsav said Sunday in an
unusually candid comment. "At times I feel we did an injustice to the Ethiopian
population by bringing them to the country," the president said after
being presented with recommendations for fighting violence within
society. Katsav's remarks came after the Ministry of Absorption
released data showing that during 2005 there was a drop of 11 percent
in crimes involving youths of Ethiopian descent and a 10 percent drop
in crime involving youths from the former Soviet Union. The president also criticized the lack of appropriate care for youths who emigrated from Ethiopia.

President Katsav did not make the same remark about Russian Jews. I cannot say what President Katsav meant. But I can say this – corruption and repeated (and uncorrected) mistakes do not lead to good absorption. And neither does the bigotry so in evidence from both politicians and rabbis.

But, if history is any indication, Israel will not learn this lesson. The corrupt and inept absorption will continue, politicians and rabbis will not stop being racists. The price for this will be paid by Israeli society, which will have, for years to come, black people on its margins – black people who wanted nothing more than to come home after thousands of years of exile. And it will be paid by Ethiopian Jews, who came home to Israel only to discover the color of their skin is more important than their years of sacrifice.

October 20, 2005

The media also seized on an incident last month in which Ethiopian
students in a Haifa high school were attacked by their fellow students
— all veteran Russian immigrants — during recess. A similar incident
took place in Arad last year. And in the beginning of 2005, two
Ethiopian girls were attacked without provocation in a Tel Aviv dance
club by other Israeli girls. Both of the Ethiopians ended up in the
hospital with serious injuries.…

According to reports from the Tebeka Center, racism also has been a
major problem. The center has dealt with hundreds of complaints
regarding racial discrimination against Ethiopian immigrants. In one
case, a dismissal notice was sent that referred to an Ethiopian
employee as a "nigger." A security supervisor at Jerusalem's Hebrew
University ordered that no more than one Ethiopian guard be assigned to
any one position. An Ethiopian worker in Arad was told that she is not
allowed to cook for Jews because the local rabbi doubts her Jewishness
and believes that she would taint the food.…

September 04, 2005

Six-year-old Adiso Dasa, who immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia three years ago, did not start school on Thursday. Rather than beginning first grade, he stayed home because of an order given by Or Yehuda Mayor Yitzhak Bokovza barring 50 children of Ethiopian immigrant families from registering in local schools.

The families all immigrated within the past three years, and until a few months ago they lived in absorption centers around the country, where they were given a governmental grant to purchase an apartment. Many of the families chose to move to Or Yehuda, where they believed they could integrate into Israeli society, find jobs and make a decent living. But sometimes dreams are dashed.

In Or Yehuda, it appears, the immigrants received a cold welcome. Mayor Bokovza is angry at state authorities, which, he said, do not allow "controlled absorption of immigrants" and allow large numbers of immigrants to end up in the same city, creating "ghettos." Some 1.5 percent of Or Yehuda residents are Ethiopian, according to Bokovza. "If this situation continues, in two years they will be 4 percent," he said.

Because of his actions, the State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss called on Bokovza to allow the students into the city's education system immediately. Bokovza will come Sunday to a meeting of the Knesset State Control Committee, where he said he would hand down an"indictment" against the State of Israel for its conduct regarding immigrant absorption.

Adiso has lived for three years with his family in an absorption center in the Jerusalem area Two months ago his family moved to Or Yehuda. Over the summer, his parents went to the municipality's education department to register him for class. "They told us the mayor has not yet decided what to do. They didn't tell us where to go. Now my brother is sitting at home,doing nothing. He is very disappointed by the entire situation," said Rahel, Adiso's older sister, on Friday.

Ethiopian Immigrants Association chair Adiso Masala had some words for Bokovza: "If citizens of Israel want to move from one community to another, they can do so freely; we're a democracy. I discovered that this man has no desire to absorb immigrant families. I now call on the government ministries to forbid mayors from denying immigrants the right to be absorbed in their cities, because that would be a dangerous precedent," he said.

Masala also blasted Education Minister Limor Livnat: "I heard her say Thursday that the school year opened with no hitches. Dozens of Ethiopian students who aren't in school is not a hitch?" he asked.

One person has stepped in to propose a solution Ramat Hasharon Mayor Yitzhak Rochberger, who has already informed the Education Ministry that he has agreed to take dozens of Ethiopian pupils from Or Yehuda into his city's education system and will even offer busing services to the children. "It is not right that someone who doesn't send his kids to school risks being shown an arrest warrant, but a mayor is exempt from this. Because of his refusal 50 kids are on the street. I think Bokovza should be presented with 50 arrest warrants, one for each child who was left outside the school gates," Rochberger said.

Bokovza is convinced that he is only saying out loud what many other local authority heads only think, but prefer not to say so as not to be accused of "racist behavior." "When someone is ready to fight, he gets called racist. I am fighting the State of Israel, not Ethiopians. I'm actually protecting them. The State of Israel is sending them randomly to all sorts of places, and causing them to concentrate in certain places. The process could continue, and it should be stopped. Like in a healing process, sometimes you have to cut into the flesh. The sight of dozens of kids who aren't in school is also distressing for me to witness. Today I will go to the State Control Committee and accuse the government ministries of abandoning certain populations and segregating strong populations from weaker ones," he said.

January 14, 2005

Haaretz has a truly sad article about the alienation of Ethiopian Jews from Israeli society and about the racism that fueled it:

"I thought that after doing army service I wouldn't have a problem getting into clubs, but that's where I came across the greatest racism of all. The worst humiliation I ever suffered was two years ago, when I went out with army buddies to the TLV club in Tel Aviv. They wouldn't let me in. My [white] Israeli friends were allowed in and I waited outside three hours. I swore never to go back there," he says.…

The hip-hop music is deafening. "[White] Israelis go to a
club to hear Middle Eastern music, with us its black music. Many may
not understand the words, but they identify with the message. They know
the songs are about racism and violence, and they feel that way," says
Kumra.

I tried during my 1993-95 stay in Israel to deal with this problem, which was then in its infancy. As a (then) Chabadnik, Chabad was the first place I turned. But Chabad was clear – it was not going to help Ethiopian Jews, period. My attempts were also rebuffed by other sectors of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) world.

I am guilty of not looking outside of the haredi world for a solution to this sad problem.

November 16, 2004

Chabad-Lubavitch's sophisticated operations in D.C. have a rather unique focus. Over the past 45 years, this office has administered support for causes of national and world Jewish concern. Yet beyond these vitalJewish interests, Chabad-Lubavitch has not abandoned its educational imperative even here. Outreach programs include twice-weekly Torah classes for Congressional staff members, a growing lecture series on
various Jewish concepts, and many holiday awareness programs and special events. A new center has been recently inaugurated.

The Truth:

1. Chabad had no permanent office in Washington, DC until the 1990's, when Rabbi Avraham Shemtov's son was old enough to open one. (This was not due to a lack of suitable rabbis – it was due to a lack of suitable Shemtovs. In other words, nepotism.) Before that, Rabbi Shemtov worked had to prevent other outreach organizations like Aish HaTorah from opening in Washington (got to hold the place for the kid, after all) while at the same time doing very little toward outreach in the nation's capital. (Yearly menorah lightings, photo-ops with politicians, fundraising …) As you may know, Rabbi Avraham Shemtov is based in Philadelphia.

2. See here for the Rebbe's perception of Chabad's activities in Washington, DC. You'll note that it seems to clash with the current Chabad spin. Especially note the Rebbe's refusal to help starving, persecuted Ethiopian Jews by asking Congress for help with aid and rescue.

A rabbinic 'protest' to this website can be downloaded as a PDF by clicking here. [It is also posted on the Adath.com website.]

[It is important to realize that I did not see the Rebbe's letter written to me twenty years ago until it was published (without my permission) nine months ago in Kfar Chabad Magazine. If I had received the Rebbe's letter then – in other words, if the Rebbe's office had not confiscated it, which is what seems to have happened – I would have publicized it immediately. Chabad bought twenty years of silence by confiscating that letter.]

October 04, 2004

"Not a single Ethiopian Jew is enrolled in the [Chabad] educational network."

Chabad schools ban Ethiopian students. Why? According to the following article, they do so because the Rebbe instructed them to. But, Chabad spokesman Rabbi Menachem Brod disingenuously claims,

"The problem with the Ethiopians arose with the arrival of immigrants in Operation Solomon, when they were flown by their leader and refused to undergo conversion according to halacha, as the Operation Moshe immigrants did. Therefore, their Jewishness is in question..."

What Rabbi Brod fails to say is that Chabad refused to take Ethiopians before Operation Solomon as well. Chabad now claims that it will only accept Ethiopian students who have undergone a full conversion (a process that often takes years) even though Rav Moshe Feinstein -- the rabbi the Rebbe referred this issue to -- ruled that only a giur l'chumra (a pro forma conversion) was necessary. But, as the article states, "not a single Ethiopian Jew is enrolled in the [Chabad] educational network."

Should a member of a movement that brazenly lies be a teacher of your children? Should he be your rabbi? Can you trust the kashrut of his food?

September 29, 2004

". . . [W]hen children suffer, and we know about them, we are always responsible for what is happening to them. To feed one child and to give hope to one parent is already to raise our voice against despair, against hunger, against injustice, inequality and humiliation."

Elie Wiesel

• • • • •

Shirking That Responsibility

". . . You demand to know why Chabad-Lubavitch representatives (“shluchim”) are not doing anything or are not doing enough, related to this problem [of Ethiopian Jews and the Famine] that you are very concerned with . . . You should know that Chabad-Lubavitch representatives have a specific mission assigned to them, which is to spread Judaism in the communities designated to them. Congressional resolutions* and the like are not part of those duties [even though those same rabbis regularly lobbied Congress and had successfully worked to have the Rebbe's birthday declared "Education Day, USA" in the Rebbe's honor] . . . your [requests for help] ... do not fit in with the activities and duties of Chabad-Lubavitch institutions or representatives. . ."

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, January 16, 1984, at the height of the Ethiopian Famine.

September 27, 2004

In 1943, the Union of Grand Rabbis and Agudas HaRabbonim issued the following plea calling on all rabbis to attend the Rabbis March on Washington. In part, it reads:

The Union of Grand Rabbis, as well as the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, appeals to support the action of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe as a Redemption of Captives [pidyon sh'vuim]. It is important for the aim of rescuing the remnant of Israel in Europe that all Rabbis be present in Washington to add weight to the manifestation of the Rabbis, the Grand Rabbis and the leaders.

As mentioned in an earlier post, it seems that no senior Chabad rabbis from the Lubavitch community of Crown Heights attended.

The Rebbe and his brother-in-law the Rashag did not attend. The Freidiker Rebbe also did not attend. (While it must be assumed that the Freidiker Rebbe's illness prevented his attendance, it did not prevent him from sending representatives of note. Yet he did not do so.)

Now, let's look at the 1983 letter from the Ad Hoc Rabbinic Committee to Save Ethiopian Jews. It calls for support for House Resolution 107 (Senate Concurrent Resolution 55), asks that petitions that do so be circulated in synagogues, and includes an ad placed by the above-mentioned Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe in the New York Times on February 16, 1943.

There were no Lubavitch signatories. Chabad did not support the House Resolution. In the Rebbe's letter on the rescue of Ethiopian Jews, he ridicules US Government involvement in rescue and refuses to support the House Resolution because such support is not in the job description of Lubavitch.

The 1943 Rabbis March led to the rescue of 250,000 Jews from the Nazis. The 1983 Letter led to US backing for and involvement in the rescues that saved more than 25,000 Ethiopian Jews.

The Rebbe's letter on the rescue of Ethiopian Jews can be read here. The letters he was responding to can be read here. Please click on the above thumbnails to read the other documents.

Your special delivery registered letter with enclosures dated 7
Kislev [Sunday, November 13, 1983 -- two months before the Rebbe wrote
this letter] was received in it’s proper time. You are raising several
questions beginning with a question that is related to a complicated
problem of Jewish law (“Halakha”). As is well-known and widely
publicized, it is outside the scope of my duties to render Jewish legal
decisions (“paskin shailot”). I can only suggest that your question be
addressed to a qualified rabbinical body, like Agudat HaRabbonim. 3

Aside from this, I am surprised by the wording of your letter
because I do not remember receiving any letter from you in the past. 4

Your attitude appears presumptuous and unbecoming. You demand to
know why Chabad-Lubavitch representatives (“shluchim”) are not doing
anything or are not doing enough, related to this problem that you are
very concerned with. Not only this, but your letter is tasteless and
illogical, because your questions would be no more logical if you asked
a physician why he is not actively involved in a matter related to
engineering.

You should know that Chabad-Lubavitch representatives (“shluchim”)
have a specific mission assigned to them, which is to spread Judaism in
the communities designated to them. Congressional resolutions and the
like are not part of those duties that are planned for them.5, 6

Furthermore, there is very little -- if anything -- they can achieve
in the area that interests you most. Therefore, to divert their minds
and to turn their energies and their time to something not related to
their mission will be wasteful and diversionary to the work that they
already do superbly and with full devotion.

Equally, your claims regarding scholarships and other projects you
mention in your letter are not logical and they do not fit in with the
activities and duties of Chabad-Lubavitch institutions of
representatives (“shluchim”).7

The impression received from your letter is that you are probably
not familiar with the correct way to achieve success for the cause you
are so eager to work for.

In light of the above mentioned, and because you have begun your
letter with B”H [an abbreviation for Baruch HaShem, Blessed is God], it
is absolutely correct for me to ask you two questions related to this
matter:

1. Remember the law ("din kadima") that the needs of the poor of
your own city come first. Did all the Jews in your city receive
adequate necessities to cover their Jewish [i.e., spiritual] needs? If not,
why not?

2. What have you done and what are you currently doing -- are you
doing all you can? -- to convince and encourage the Jews in your
community -- men, women and children -- to live their lives as truly
devoted Jews, Jews devoted to the Torah and its laws, fulfilling the
daily mitzvot and acting as Jews? If not, why not?

Of course, there are many differences between your questions and
mine. In fact, an operation to benefit the Jews of your community
(along with it having precedence in Jewish law, "din kadima") can be
carried out without the necessity of assistance from the American
Congress and without the approval of any foreign government.
Furthermore, such an operation would undoubtedly be successful -- it
depends only on you and your willingness and determination to carry out
such an urgent action. 8 Surely there is no need to explain to you the conditions in
America -- including in your state and in your city -- that so very
many Jews -- men, women and young children -- are carried away on the
stream of assimilation, influenced by foreign surroundings that leads
to intermarriage, etc. So many of them are lost to our people
day-after-day, and, according to our sages, even the soul of one Jew is
regarded as an entire world, and certainly it is so with regard to the
rescue of so many of our brothers [from assimilation].

I must say that the purpose of my letter to you is not to argue with
you or even to give you mussar (“moral guidance”) because I do not know
you. Your letter is one of very many letters I receive and your letter
does not fit in with any of them. It occurs to me that perhaps it is
providential (“hashgakha pratit”), and that this gives me the
opportunity to bring to your attention the fact that the many Jews
nearby you have important needs and that an effort must be made to
reach and save them -- they have the priority, the first claim on Jews
like you.

May G-d give you the correct answers to answer my questions, not for
my self-indulgence but for the sake of our brethren (“acheynu b’nai
yisrael”), especially the younger generation in your city, assuming
that you are a resident there for at least a few years or perhaps were
born there.

With The Respect That Is Fitting (“B’Kavod HaRoy”),

[Signed]
P.S. I would like to respectfully ask you as an additional question
related to this matter: In what way can it be helpful to this issue
(that you are so angry about) for you to be well-informed on what I do
or do not do to benefit it?

Footnotes

1. The Rebbe was writing to a university student who at that time had
already been very active in outreach efforts on his campus, in his city
and, in fact, throughout North America for several years, including
working with Chabad-Lubavitch representatives in his city and across
the country, and would continue to do so for many years to come. His
first contact with Lubavitch had come almost two years before this when
he hand-delivered to Chabad-Lubavitch representative Rabbi Moshe Feller
a letter smuggled out of Ethiopia from Ethiopian Jewish leaders to
American rabbis desperately pleading for help and describing the
horrible situation in Ethiopia. The student asked Rabbi Feller to send
a copy of that letter to the Rebbe. It appears from the Rebbe's letter
that this was not done. The student also had extensive contact with
Chabad leadership in Brooklyn and repeatedly asked them to help
Ethiopian Jews. They refused, and either did not pass along the
student's requests to the Rebbe, or, if they did, the Rebbe simply
ignored them.

As the Rebbe's letter soon makes clear, and as Chabad's subsequent actions demonstrate, Chabad's position is that a Jewish educational project in Minnesota is more important than saving the lives of starving tortured African Jews.

2. “Greetings and Blessings!”, a standard opening to a letter in rabbinic Hebrew discourse.

3. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the Dean of the Rabbinic Court of Agudat
HaRabbonim, had already ruled that Ethiopian Jews must be saved and had
widely publicized that ruling. Rabbi Feinstein and Agudat HaRabbonim
would soon rule again, very publicly, that Ethiopian Jews must be saved
and that one can certainly and must in fact violate all Sabbath
restrictions in order to carry out the rescue if it be necessary to do
so. The Rebbe did not listen to either decision, and continued to
withhold help, both with rescue and with absorption and acclimation to
Israeli society and modern Judaism.

4. Note the previous letter on Ethiopian Jews sent September 16, 1983
and published here for the first time. Also note that many requests for
help and guidance had already been made verbally through
representatives of Lubavitch in Minnesota, Crown Heights -- including
Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, the Rebbe’s secretary and public relations person
-- and other locations throughout North America, without any response
from the Rebbe.

5. Getting Congress to pass resolutions declaring the Rebbe’s birthday
as “Education Day, USA,” was part of their duties, however.

7. The Rebbe was asked to send Chabad 'Mitzva Tanks' into absorption
centers to visit Ethiopian Jews. That is what the Rebbe is referring to
when he says the projects mentioned "are not logical and they do not
fit in with the activities and duties of Chabad-Lubavitch institutions
of representatives."

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